...something Francine knew all too well as she read his lips while racing past the classroom window; a cryptic revelation that not even she had the courage to face; a dreadful harbinger of what would soon come to pass. The frigid Winter air nipped at her ears and lips. One foot in front of the other, over and over as the snow crunched beneath her feet. She looked to the sky as the snowflakes fell, the Winter sun blinding her eyes as she mechanically ran forward.

At once, the white of the snow-caked sky seemed to zoom over her head once, twice, three times...her line of sight was suddenly spinning rapidly out of control. Wet snow rolled over the back of her head, past her signature barrettes, and then back over her head again. Then, she felt a forceful thud atop her head, right where her hair parted. Again, again, and again. She could smell her lucky gym socks as her body crouched ever inwards and her feet reached but a few inches away from her face, catapulting forward and downward, her world spinning vertically like a pinwheel gone haywire...

Francine Alice Frensky was falling down stairs.

In the distance, old John Morris a'raised his salty, whiskey-soaked nose. The faint tumbling and cries from the schoolyard were desperate and torn, as was the cry of the fishmongers. Rising clumsily to his aching feet, he opened his world-weary eyes to see, as he picked up his hammer and saw...

...but before he could utter a word, John Henry Morris brought down his steel-drivin' hammer upon his head with the all might and fury of a thousand steam engines. Slink fell limp to the ground, and began to wiggle.

In the snowy schoolyard, Francine blinked her eyes as she came to her senses after a furious spill down the stairs. Her head throbbed and her vision was blurred, but it would take more than ice and concrete to stop her. She stood at the bottom of the stairwell leading to the school boiler room, caught between the fresh chill of the Winter air above, and the sweltering boil of the school's catacombs below. Above she could hear the voices of her friends. At first she couldn't quite discern who it was, but as she took a step forward, the voice was all too clear.

It was George. She called his name, but he did not answer. Rather, he muttered something that sounded familiar. Something he'd said to her in the past, seasons ago. She could see his face blinking in and out through the snowstorm, and saw that his nose was bleeding. She could hear the others - Muffy, Buster, the whole gang jeering at him. And she then heard her own voice shouting them down in George's defense, and the children were gone. Her head began to spin. She could her the whirling of bicycles. Hundreds of them cycling in unison across the schoolyard. Everyone was wearing Summer clothes for some reason, and then she recognized Ms. McGrady's face emblazoned on all of their shirts. She witnessed all the good deeds she'd done in her short life, and her soul felt lighter than air.

She turned her head to the boiler room behind her. Inside, she could hear Fern crying. Crying because she'd been called a mouse. Crying because someone told her that she was as dumb as a rock for liking Mr. Ratburn's puppet shows. The boiler room door began to glow. She could hear the sound of the old bike her father lovingly gave to her being crushed in the jaws of a trash compactor. She could hear the screams of a thousand tortured souls being torn apart in the fiery catacombs.

She looked down at her feet. To her horror and amazement, she saw herself laying there at the bottom of the stairwell, comatose from the fall. She raised her hand up in front of her face. It was transparent! Suddenly...

Or...was it? Taking in her surroundings, she realized she was on the inside of a Taxi. Slink was sitting next to her, quietly and with his head down. Old John Morris was behind the wheel, saying nothing. Opening the door, she felt an overwhelming feeling of peace and calm. She stood in the parking lot, which was sparsely populated and very still. For some reason, most of the shoppers were very old. There were some soldiers off in the distance. The sky was unusually bright, bathing the building and already snow-white pavement with a soothing glimmer.

Francine felt drawn to the large building before her. Passing the shopping carts, she noticed that they were filled with various toys and objects from her room, and pictures of her friends and family. She felt sad as she walked past them, leaving them behind her. She arrived at the gates, and was surprised to see her aunt working there as a greeter. Spanky was perched happily on her shoulder.

She then heard an ominous voice over the intercom: "Welcome to Bardo Mart. Please proceed to Aisle 5."

francine shook her head to try and clear it. but apparently the voice took it as a no, and suddenly she was swept up by a horde of baby ratburns as she was swept to aisle 5,watching as the processed food swept past her, color and smell blended in a disgusting merchandise selling consumer ensemble, it was- "SOYLENT GREEN IS READY FOR CONSUMER CONSUMPTION." she saw muffy grinning evilly, counting her money as she lined up her "friends" for taste testing...but for them, or her? but wait, no, muffy was cowering, she wasn't at the top yet. francine looked up, and saw....

Logged

~*We don't have to be defined by the things we did or didn't do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it's a regret, maybe it's not. It's merely something that happened. Get over it.*~

...and sweet Jesus, her head had ballooned to four times its already-ginormous size and was getting bigger by the second! In one hand she held a large book. In the other, a mirror. T'was truly a sight to behold, but thank goodness someone was finally here who had all the answers. Muffy stood there transfixed by the spectacle like a charmed serpent, her jaw wide open and the Monopoly money she'd been counting falling to the floor and disintigrating at her feet.

Francine looked down at Muffy's feet, and suddenly realized something - she wasn't wearing any shoes! Or socks! Or anything at all! Wait a minute...neither was Francine! Neither was anybody else in line! It was a like a nightmare straight out of Arthur's Underwear. The line of people continued to move slowly and mechanically through the Soylent System, depositing any remaining jewelry, hairpins or miscellany into plastic bins. They disappeared through a gray double-door leading back into some kind of stock room and down a long, dark corridor.

The sounds from the overhead speaker and adjacent aisles were becoming louder and more unsettling. A small bird flew overhead that had somehow made its way into the store. Francine looked into Charlotte's beady eyes, stomped her foot, clenched her fists and asserted herself to demand what was going on. But alas, no matter how hard she tried to speak, all that came out was...